Social media is often vilified by writers and book-readers for relentlessly spitting out memes and gifs, food porn and candid camera videos, all punctuated by hysterical statements on politics, love and religion. Nothing, in other words for people who love books.
As a matter of fact, in India Facebook and Twitter have also opened up an entirely new universe to booklovers. Book clubs have mushroomed in many unobtrusive corners of social media, acquiring followers and members at a fast clip. They leverage the formidable reach of the medium in enterprising ways.
The Sunday Book Club
Founders Raghav Modi and Sudha Ganapathi conduct a book chat on Twitter every Sunday from 3pm to 4 pm, India time. The topic for the chat is typically announced a few days in advance. Since the inception of the club almost four years ago, no topic has been repeated. “We try to refrain from discussing popular books, because we want people to start discovering material from genres that they are not familiar with,” Ganapathi explains.
Although TSBC doesn’t organise official meets, the founders often tweet from places where bibliophiles are likely to congregate, and initiate impromptu meet-ups. “We just sit down and talk about books, there is no specific agenda,” Ganapathi says of these meets.
The universal appeal of Twitter made them opt for it, Modi says. Social media is indispensable for TSBC, because the venue for most of the interactions they organise, including the Sunday book chat, is Twitter. The club also asks members to tweet book recommendations under the hashtag #TSBC.
The Reading Racoons – Discovering Children’s Literature
A Facebook group founded by Tanushree Singh, this one makes book recommendations for children. The club took shape when Singh was looking for interesting books that kids could enjoy, and kept coming across moralistic treatises instead.
“I wanted parents to see that kids don’t always have to read books that preach something to them,” Singh says. The appeal of the group spread quickly among parents, and it now has a membership of around 11,000. The popularity of the group, coupled with requests from members, prompted her to start a similar group for adults, Senior Reading Racoons.
Reading Racoons groups attempt to create a non-judgmental space, and Singh believes social media is particularly helpful in this endeavour. “Facebook and Twitter are also very relevant now because trips to bookstores have reduced considerably. People prefer to purchase books online,” she points out.
Book Deals for Broke Bibilophiles
This Facebook group tries to make online shopping less heavy on the pocket. The founder, addressed simply as Broke, posts links to discounted deals on books at online stores, earning the everlasting gratitude of its members.
The group began after Broke discovered that his penchant for browsing online bookstores for deals was saving him a lot of money compared to his colleagues. He felt that his nose for deals habit could help other book enthusiasts.
Book Deals for Broke Bibliophiles was initially restricted to online spaces, but Broke advised members to start chapters in different cities in April 2016 and organise book meets. Nirav Mehta, co-host of the Bombay Chapter of Broke Bibliophiles, says the meets don’t have a fixed agenda, because the club is still in its nascent stages. “We publicise meets by creating an event on Facebook, and keep them public,” he explains.
Bring Your Own Book
A reading club based primarily in Delhi, it also has chapters in several other Indian cities. It uses social media, primarily Facebook, to inform members about meets and to simplify registration process. When the club announces a meet on its Facebook page, it also outlines a theme and asks members to bring along a suitable book to discuss. They are also encouraged to take home and swap books that appeal to them.
“Most book clubs discuss one book at a time and that can be extremely restrictive,” says Nidhi Shrivastava, founder of BYOB. She felt the need for a book club that would allow members to speak about whichever book caught their fancy. After the idea struck her, Shrivastava rustled up the support a few friends and started a Facebook page. She says that the response far exceeded her expectations. “The first meeting was at my home and I was slightly concerned that so many strangers would be coming in,” she reminisces.
Despite its many boons, using social media is not without it challenges. There is a notorious class of users who enjoy derailing conversations and disrupting normal activity. But founders of most of these groups say that have not faced any harrowing incidences of trolling. They find that such pranksters get shut down very quickly in the world of bibliophiles. “It will just take any troll an hour to realise that this is a group of very dedicated bibliophiles and there’s no room for someone who is here to simply socialise,” says Shrivastava.
Founder of the Reading Racoons groups says she that tries to keep interactions as conflict free as possible. “Conversations sometimes get nasty and I have to intervene. I have also faced personal attacks,” she says. When faced with such members, founders either warn or block them, and in some cases, put up posts on their pages to discourage further attacks.
Several online book clubs have a huge following of engaged book enthusiasts. Consequently, they attract authors and publishers alike, who view them as ideal advertising spaces. The founders of these clubs have to expend considerable energy in ensuring that their spaces remain promotion free and their recommendations, genuine.
But for most of the people associated with these online book clubs, the benefits of social media far outweigh its risks. Not only are Facebook and Twitter superbly quick in disseminating information about new book releases, they also help bibliophiles prolong their reading experience by facilitating discussions. “Social Media also gives readers an opportunity to interact with authors and find out what they are reading,” adds Mehta of Broke Biblophiles.
Facebook and Twitter provide book clubs with a fun space where bibliophiles of varying personalities can together gush over the books they’ve read and discover new ones. “We are a bunch of strangers who came together because of social media and a shared love for books. Now we are the best of friends,” Shrivastava summarizes.